Fake but accurate?

...student journalist/College Democrat at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., admitted that she had drawn swastikas on her own dorm room door.

...she told the staff that she "only drew the final three of six swastikas on her door in an attempt to highlight what she characterized as GW's inaction.

Oh, it was political speech, well then that makes it all, all right.

This article highlights two things, one directly and the other indirectly. The first is this ongoing drive to manufacture news to fit the mime when you can not find it naturally. The other is this spate of manufactured hate crimes. Hate crime in and of its self is problematic because you are criminalizing thought. In this "new world" hate crime laws make it preferable to kill someone for money than it is to kill them for their race or sexual orientation. The victim is just as dead but modern society has determined that committing a crime for the second reason is worst than for the first.

If a hate crime is worst than a "normal" crime, should not a fake hate crime be just as bad as a "real" hate crime? Should not someone faking a hate crime still have to face the same penalties as someone that commits them for real? The intent is the same, to inflict pain and suffering against persons based on issues of race, sexual orientation, religion and/or other issues of prejudice. In this case, the student's hate crime was against herself and the rest of the local community because they were falsely inflamed and lead to believe that a crime was committed. They felt the same emotional pain and suffering at hearing and seeing the results of this student's fake crime as they would have felt had it been real. One could argue that a fake hate crime is actually worst than a real hate crime because of the emotional backlash that those who witnessed or heard about the original crime would suffer from, after learning that it was faked and their emotional involvement was wasted.

As is the norm these days though, cause "she meant well" and was just "trying to make a point" she will most likely get off with little to no punishment and may even be praised for her "courage" in bringing issues of race, religion and/or politics to light.